Whats Wrong With Cats? And other tales..

So it has been a long time since I posted anything, to be honest I haven't had much time to do any work up until now.  I have been working on my black-out poetry though, that blog has been doing very well and since tumblr featured it I am currently up to 2,162 followers. It makes me wonder if I shouldn't start posting on my tumblr portfolio blog again. Its nice to have a bit of recognition, to know that people you don't know and will never meet like what you do.
Even though I have made little over the summer I have had a good few ideas, that have been loyally noted down in the sketchbook. And now that I am able to get going again hopefully the ideas will come to fruition!

 A big boost for me recently is that I was shortlisted for the 2014 Undergraduate Awards in the visual arts category, the 2014 Highly Commended shortlist to be exact. It is like winning the lotto! Although the likelihood of me winning the category is as slim as winning the lotto twice, I am still very lucky and grateful that I had the honour of being shortlisted!

'Becoming a winner, or even highly commended, means you are in the top of your field. The Undergraduate Awards identifies and recognises the most creative and nuanced arguments and ideas coming out at undergraduate level internationally. The overall winners are published in our annual academic journal. The journals are sent to every university library and is often requested by academics as a directory of the finest undergraduates from every discipline…….' -from the Undergraduate Awards Webpage. 

I have often babbled on about creating a  body of work to help support animals in need and I hope that now that I am not in college I am closer to that goal. Slowly but surely these things come together. I need someone to give me a deadline for a body of work then maybe I can kick it into gear!
Anyway I am fascinated and often appalled by people's negative reaction against cats, especially in Ireland.  People tend to stereotype against them, because of old superstitions and ideas that they are vermin. This is terrible, and I could babble on about it all day, being a cat owner myself. If you treat your cat like your dog spay and give it its shots then the world would be a better place!

Below are two needlepoints I did from sketches of my own cats, B.W and Garfunkel  I wanted to keep the needle point true to the sketches, the needle points are on five inch hoops. I plan to make a bunch of these. 
I am also interested in taking portraits of people and their cats, especially men, so If you read this and are interested please let me know.

Garfunkel and B.W.